Yay for fun trips to the beach!

Mom and Dad's friend, who is a chief of police, gave me a cop-sized bottle of pepper spray to take with me on my trip when he heard I was going alone. He is so thoughtful. At the last minute, a friend was actually able to go with me, but we took it anyway. Anyway, it was so fun! The first night we left after work and spent the night in Mesquite. We sat in the hot tub for a few and went to bed. (Nope, no gambling.) It took until about 6 p.m. to reach the cali coast from there because we got started late and made about ten stops on the way, ha ha. But we got there! We stayed in the Marriott Courtyard in Old Town for two nights and someone's house on the last night. I learned a lot of things and had some firsts on this trip:

• Learned how to place a bid on Priceline and get a great deal. (Thanks Uncle David!) I will never book another hotel without first bidding on Priceline.
• Ate Tirimisu and Creme Brule for the first time. YUMMY! Also we ate at an expensive restuarant in Balboa Park and I ordered a salad, which ended up being just cheese on lettuce and a couple croutons.
• Went to Balboa Park, which was absolutely beautiful! We walked through the area with the giant organ and all the museums. We saw the Botanical Gardens and went to the Bodies exhibit at the Museum of Natural History. Such a beautiful park! If I lived in San Diego I would go there all the time.
• Drove around for two hours looking for beach parking during peak hours in tourist season at Mission and Pacific Beach. We ended up at La Jolla, which was still crowded. We parked about a mile away and walked!
• Had my car die.
• Went to Newport Beach a couple days later, which was one-thousand times better! Much more beach and much less crowding.
• Swam in the ocean.
• Learned what it means to eat shit. (Will explain later.)
• Ate on the roof at Ruby's Diner on the pier at Newport Beach.
• Spent the night at a friend's friend's mom's house without anyone else being there. (Rachel has the hookups!)
• Pulled an all-nighter while driving home.
• Had some political realizations.
• Realized that even though California drivers come here and complain about Utah drivers, they are actually much more rude, impatient, fast, and dangerous drivers than we are. By a hundred times, probably.
• Played a card game called "Bang" with Amos Watene, voice of Brobee the Yo Gabba Gabba character.

So, we decided to swim at Newport Beach. I haven't been to the ocean since I was 15. I don't think I have ever actually gone swimming in the ocean, ever. The water was pretty cold but you could get used to it after a few minutes. We went all the way out to our shoulders-ish and bobbed up and down in the waves and tried to body surf. As I followed Rachel out, she said, "just try not to eat shit!" I had to ask her what she meant, and she just said if a wave came at me and started crashing over me, to dive under and into the wave and let it pass over me. Well one such humongous wave did come, only I am not skilled at diving into and under a wave (It's hard because you're actually being pulled by the water), so I did the next-best thing I could think of at the last second and ducked under the water. That wave pounded me. Before I could think, I was being flipped and rolled head over heals and didn't know which way was up. I just prayed it wouldn't shove my head into the ground. Finally I found the bottom with a body part I don't remember (not my head) and righted myself, and came up gasping for air. It totally screwed up my swimsuit (let's just say it's a good thing there weren't a lot of people there), and I felt like vomiting after swallowing so much nasty seawater. Oh. Eating shit. Makes sense. (My mom did the same thing in Hawaii except her head got hit on the bottom and I think she's still having problems from it). The beach was so much fun though. And we layed out to dry and then went for a walk and dinner on the pier. Next time I go to Southern California, I am staying in Newport! It was the best!

Anyway, that's all for now! We left Newport Beach at 5 p.m. and drove straight home. We got home at 6 this morning and I fell asleep almost immediately. So, I'm still salty from not showering. So I should go shower. Rachel has most of the pictures we took on her camera, so I'll post them when I get them from her.

Hi from San Diego

Congrats Geoff

Today was Geoff's very last day of class at UVU, ever! He didn't want me to make a big deal out of it, but I still wanted to do something special. So I hung a banner on the door and got him a card.

We also went to my mom and dad's for a barbeque with the family. Mom made him a necklace out of smarties because he's a "smartie."

Mom and dad also gave him a shirt. They said it was kind of supposed to be a joke, but I'm sure Geoff will love wearing it.

They also gave him a gift card to Tucahno's. And Grandma and Donald gave him a gift card too.

Geoff and Erik getting ready to dig in.

Grandma and Donald

Dad the grillmaster and Kola, with her little bat-ears, begging for food.

Dinner outside. We brought the dessert - pecan pie and neapolitan pie from Village Inn. Mmmmmm.

Thanks mom and dad for having us over tonight!

I'm so proud of my hubby for working so hard! He is a good man and I love him so much.

Wed. Aug. 12

I came home for lunch break today because I wanted to cut up our last watermelon and take some back to work. I got done and went to rinse the watermelon-juice off my hand but when I flipped the handle, nothing came out! So I checked in the bathroom and there was no water in there either. I went upstairs to ask the new guy if he had water - nope. It had been out since ten that morning, he said. He hadn't called the city yet because he didn't have a phone book (I gave him one of our plethora of phone books) and he called. The city said our HOA hadn't paid the bill. What! I found the phone number and called them, and "are you kidding me?" is what they said. They said they paid it and would call the city right away. When we got home tonight the water was back on.

Well, wasn't that the funnest story ever.

Ang gave me a bunch of books to read - including a couple of her favorites. I can't wait to read them! Except I might not be doing as much reading on my trip as I thought, since now my friend Ray thinks she might be able to come. I hope so! She went to school down there and knows the area, and even knows some people we could stay with to cut down on expenses. I still want to stay on the beach at least one or two nights though. And she knows how to surf and has a surf board at a friend's down there, so we might surf a little. Well - she'll probably surf, I'll probably just wipe out. But it will be fun. I'm so pumped!

At our performance meeting yesterday, we used my problem with the tax commission as our case-study (along with a few others who were having similar problems with different agencies) and learned some tricks on how to calm the clients down when they call and help them feel at ease while helping them, and help them understand that it is a problem with the commission and not with us without being unprofessional. I had two such phone calls today, and the first one I was totally unprepared for, but I set my binder out that had my notes so I could reach it easily the next time. When the next call came I ran the playset on it and it worked like a charm! A friggin' charm! I don't get the chance to run playsets a lot in my job because my contact with the clients is minimal. But it was fun to see it work and helped it go much smoother. I did call the tax commission and tell them about the problem they have caused for us. I think the most we are going to be able to ask from them though is a brief letter of explanation that we could pass along to the clients, if we get that. Hopefully the bulk of them are taken care of though. Hopefully by this time next month we won't have many more.

Am I writing too much about work? I don't want to get in trouble. I don't think I've ever said anything but good things about my work, but still. Maybe I should cut down on it.

I got a pair of shorts for 98 cents at Old Navy today. Cute ones too. shweet.

:)

Today was soo very busy but was awesome!

Terrible, horrible, okay, very awesome day

Boy, I was not a happy camper this morning. I was just so frustrated with the tax commission. Did I already write about this? Something happened in their data conversion when they switched software platforms that caused a bunch of delinquent notices to be sent to people who do not warrant them. We even got one this morning. When I called to ask about it, I was told "oops, we don't know how that happened," that they would fix it and that our account was in the clear. I made four of those phone calls today. FOUR. And one to the state of Georgia, (who already admitted their mistake but asked me to follow-up in fourteen business days) whose automated hold-message would say, "due to high call volume, your expected wait time is now ten minutes," and then after five more minutes of wait, would say, "due to high call volume, your expected wait time is now forty-five minutes." Huh??? (whatever happened to in-the-order-recieved policy) So, pretty much my whole morning was spent quelching down tax-problems-caused-by-tax-commissions, and I was also dreading that phone call, was getting requests from people who had missed other deadlines to please help them catch up, and hadn't even gotten to my normal daily work yet, and so was really frustrated.

But, a long lunch of Apple Spice Junction and some excedrine helped me feel better, and then the afternoon turned around. All of the tax commission problems were fixed except for Georgia, who I will try again tomorrow, and an IRS thing I've been working on for over a year was finally put to bed by recieving a refund check in the mail!! FINALLY! (It was really really the IRS's mistake and we eventually had to use the taxpayer advocate to fix that one but they really did a great job!) I was able to catch up on most of my work, and finally got to have the phone call I'd been so scared of. It went so awesomely, better than I even thought the best-case was! I wanted to place that person on a giant pedestal and worship him for being so cool. I seriously love working with those kind of people. And am so glad that my coworker helped me practice the phone call in advance. It felt good having checked stuff off a list today. Tomorrow I hope to dig into another project and get that bad-boy done.

Last week I only got one point out of four on the wellness but still lost three pounds! Yay!

Update: I just got back from the most awesome drive. Quaint houses, thick trees, fresh-air, orange dusky sky, and music from the "life songs" CD. Theeeeeee best.

Sat Aug 8

Whilst lying in bed this morning, I heard what sounded like an intense water leak in the ceiling, or I thought maybe the neighbor was doing something weird to his bathroom floor. A few minutes later, there was a loud clunk whoosh flap-flap-flap-flap squeak sound from a hallway closet. I jumped out of bed and peered into the hallway, as did Wally, (Geoff was at the computer oblivious to any weird sounds), opened the washer/dryer closet. Nothing. I turned around and slowly cracked open the closet that contains the furnace and water heater, and a rush of wings had me screaming and slamming the door shut again. "Geoff!" I exclaimed, "There's a bird in the hallway closet!" Geoff came running out, we couldn't believe it. How in the world did a nasty bird get inside the closet in the middle of the house! And how would we get it out again? We thought about it, and finally decided to just call someone, because we didn't want to be chasing a bird all over the house, and didn't know if it had diseases or whatever. We considered sicking Wally on it, but figured he would probably just run away from it. A guy pulled up a half hour later, bringing a giant net with him. He cracked open the closet door and out flew the bird, a large sparrow, into the hallway. With one swoosh he caught it in his net and carried it outside. He laid it gently on the ground and little birdy flew up and away to be with his friends. He explained that the bird must've fallen into one of the pipes sticking out of the roof, all the way down into our closet, and showed us the opening where little bird dropped in. Weird, he said, birds weren't supposed to be able to get in, and if it happens again to let our landlord know to fix the pipe. After he left, we cleaned the closet with bleach because their was bird blood on the door.

After the excitement of the morning, we headed to Walmart for a new bookshelf, some CD cases, and a new vacuum, because our supposedly nice one broke, and the service warranty was expired. We decided that from now on, it would be cheaper to just buy a new $60 vacuum once a year than a $200 one every two years. Growing up, it seems like we had one vacuum that lasted years. How do we find one like that.

I am now organizing the backroom.

Friday Aug. 7 2009

Well that phone call never happened. I talked about it and practiced with my co-worker (a practice encouraged by our HP instructor), got up the courage to dial the number, and was met with voicemail. Oh well. Monday, I guess. I got some other phone calls from some people who, for some reason, are trying to be difficult just to be difficult. It's like they want to be punitive and treat me like a butt-wipe, even though I am kindly trying to help them with a problem that isn't even ours, but they obviously don't see it that way. Some people are just like that, especially some particular someones, but that's probably all I should say about that.

Anyway, I came home fuming, with that I. AM. DONE. attitude. Geoff is so patient. He listened to me rant for about 20 minutes, then took me to the store for chocolate, and made me laugh about a story involving his one experience with meals on wheels. He was at a really old, old lady's house with a guy named Vance. Only this poor lady thought his name was Vent, and she kept saying, "What kind of a name is VENT?" "No no, it's VANCE." "Well, what kind of a name is VENT?" ha.

Tonight we watched the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. It was okay but I miss Harry Potter, which is ten hundred times better. We're going to plug along with Price Caspien though, and see if it gets better. It's only ten and I'm about to fall asleep.

Scotty help me

Well the AC repairman came and fixed it today, but we soon discovered that he had fixed everything except mine and my boss's offices, which are run on a different system or something. So both of our offices were in the 80's again today. He came to me at the end of the day and said that I am welcome to tell him any time I'm not happy with the climate in my office and he'll help me get it repaired, but as for him, he's going to tough it out and make the most of having a private sauna. Ha. So I guess that leaves me to be the complainer. Well, I thought about it, and I'm only going to be there for another week and then I'll have a week off, and by that time August will be almost over and soon it will be September and it'll start getting cooler. I guess I'll just keep my hair pulled out of the way eh? It can't be that bad. OR - lightbulb - I'll get a little fan and keep it handy.

Anyway. Tomorrow's Friday. Yeehaw. I have to make a phone call to a client that I am not looking forward to in the least little teeny tiny bit. I have to give them bad news about something, something that we were arguably responsible for in the first place, from clear back in 2007. It should be fun. That's kind of what our human-performance meeting are about, to give us tools to handle tough situations wherin we must be the bearer of bad news- hopefully I can utilize it effectively. I say, I am one of those people who is perfectly happy working in a little space all by themselves all day. This is way out of my comfort zone. One of the managers offered to sit in on the phone call with me. I appreciate that, but I almost think I'd rather be embarrassed by myself. Wish me luck!

At least there's coming home to be with hubby at the end of the day. I think we've really been enjoying each other's company in the last few weeks. It is so nice to just hang out together and make dinner together and do nothing.

Staring down

The air-conditioning goes out every now and then in some part of the building at work. Today it was our turn - and probably tomorrow too I'm guessing, since the repairman didn't make it today. It reached 82 degrees! Not comfortable but not unbearable. Though everyone kept saying how sleepy it made them. I admit I took an extra long lunch to escape the heat for a little while.

Anyway, we moved the elliptical into the kitchen today. It was not easy getting that beastly machine, which is half the size of our backroom, out the doorway and down the crooked hallway. We took all the doors off the hinges and scraped the handles up a little bit, but we did it! So while having a giant elliptical in the middle of your kitchen is not a sightly thing, at least we can watch TV while working out, and not have to breath litter-box fumes or risk the chance that Wally will decide to take a dump while we're already gasping for air, and there's much more room back here now. Room for another bookshelf. For all the books we have spilling out all over the place. Maybe we can stash the CD's there too, cuz they are everywhere as well. We have so much crap! ha ha. I'm going to cancel my gym membership and hope the elliptical holds out during the winter months. (We bought it used for $200 bucks. Not the smoothest machine but it does the job!) I figure I won't be going to the gym much once school starts again anyway.

I really really love the new Collective Soul song. I just love how the lyrics and music are always so upbeat and fun. Collective Soul is my one true love in the music world, standing the test of time. The album comes out on the 25th and I can't wait!

That's the way this wheel keeps turning

Oooh I want to shoot myself at the end of the day for wearing heels! My poor poor feet.

Geoff and I went to lunch at a chinese place around the corner from where he works, and got a small ice cream at Pier 49 after. It was fun. I like seeing him in the middle of the day.

On the 24th there was a short article in the newspaper about an owner of four teeny-tiny PEO's - a Utah guy - who didn't pay payroll taxes for five years and is facing prison. How in the world do you get away with that for five years! Anyway, we think some of our clients saw it and now they're freaking out a little thinking we could be doing the same thing, (which we're NOT) so we've gotten a bunch of requests for proof that we're paying our taxes and stuff. I will admit - I feel a little defensive in the first split second I get the requests - as though we are being accused of being criminals - but then I was thinking, we have nothing to be defensive of. And I can understand that some might be worried and am happy to ease their worries. And this is going to sound corny, but I am so glad to work for an ethical company. Even if I wasn't the one making tax payments, I would have full confidence in us. Serious, we couldn't be more straight-arrow if we were led by the boy scouts of america. (In fact I think we probably are). I appreciate my employer so much, and am proud to work for them.

Soup for dinner again, and house cleaning tonight. I love this being home thing.

Them crazy watermelon people

Today after work we both came home and made potato soup for dinner. We watched Little House on the Prairie. There were fireworks at the end of the show, and they scared Wally. We looked over at him and he was arching his back and jumping away from the TV, and staring at it intently. Geoff kept rewinding and replaying that part cuz Wally was being so funny. He's not scared of real fireworks, but the ones on the TV.

I sucked big time in the wellness challenge last week. Now that there is no school at all, I really have no excuse.

Geoff and Cali enjoying watermelon:
Geoff: Have you ever had watermelon-rind pie?
Cali: No! They make such a thing?
Geoff: They do.
Cali: Who's they?
Geoff: pause.... The watermelon people?

Nice lazy weekend

Friday night Ken came over and did massages for Geoff and me. He was so good! You wouldn't know he is just beginning massage therapy school. He really focused on my neck too, and went ten minutes overtime just working on my neck. It was wonderful. After that we re-watched HP 5 because Geoff fell asleep the first time. On Sat. I went tanning, then we went to see the new HP, then to my grandma's. I gave her a guided journal that she could write in; she was excited about it. It's her and Donald's second anniversary tomorrow - how weird that it's been two years already! (The book wasn't an anniversary gift just FYI). Anyway, then we got dinner and snow cones and went to FYE. Today we've done some housecleaning and went to church and now we're just watching movies. This is usually about the time I start to feel really guilty about putting off homework, but no such worries now!

Quote:
Cali: "Just cuz you don't get butterflies."
Geoff: "What?! How do you know what goes on in my innards?"

My island in the sun

I am so excited that it's August tomorrow! So many great things about this August! Hot weather, long days, no school, my birthday, and time off work. Oh I am going to enjoy it to the fullest. Bring on the snow cones. Tonight my co-worker's husband, who just started massage therapy school, is going to come to our house and practice on me and Geoff. I have a lot of pain and tension in my upper neck - as does my coworker - and she says he is wonderful at getting rid of that. I haven't ever been to a massage therapist who really works on that area - even when I tell them to - so I am looking forward to it. Then we are going to see Harry Potter sometime tomorrow probably. There will probably be some housecleaning. And sleeping in, for sure. Okay well enough of this boring post I'm just daydreaming about the awesome weekend ahead.

Random quote: "Hey, let's name our kid Parry Hotter." -pause- "What do you think?" (Geoff)

We are DONE

Geoff and I both had our presentations tonight. Geoff's was at five; mine was supposed to be at 7:s0 but didn't actually start until 8:30 because we were behind. We pretty much got reamed, but I didn't feel that it was in a hateful or demanding way, more of a "you shoulda probably done this-or-that" in a helpful kind of way. I mean, that's what I hope anyway, cuz it's not like we're a real management team that knows what we're doing. At any rate, IT'S OVER!!! No more class for a whole month!! Yeeehaw!!!!

Trying to win

So on the radio about an hour ago they announced that they are giving away Collective Soul concert tickets to the Las Vegas show, backstage passes to meet the band, and they're putting you up at the Hard Rock hotel and casino. Does this trip not sound meant for me??? And they said the contest was just minutes away.

An hour ago.

I've been glued to the radio. A Collective Soul song came on just now and I dialed and redialed, only to find out that's not the cue to call. The radio guy said they'd probably do it in the next hour. And he also said it's just to qualify for the trip. Which means I'd have to do this again, if I won.

So this is why I've never tried to win anything on the radio before. My co-worker's husband wins stuff on the radio all the time. In fact, he's won, only to find out he couldn't have the prize because they can only give prizes to the same person every so often. Ha.

Update: It's now been an hour since the guy told me it would be within the next hour. I can't believe I'm still sitting here. I keep thinking right after the next song...

Update: Okay, I think the radio guy might've took me for a sucker... Successfully. That is sad. I'm leaving.

WOW

Are these homes on shortsale or something? I don't know how to tell. But I just cannot believe the gorgeousness of this home for this price. And there are a lot of them here. Oh it makes me want to buy so bad! For sure, you'd get a lot more home for your money down there than up here!

Facebook - where time goes to die

I deactivated my facebook account, ha ha. Oh freedom. I'm slowly cutting myself off socially, so it's just you and me now, blogosphere. (oh and also all the people I see in person on a regular basis) The nice thing about facebook is that you can reactivate your account at anytime so you don't exactly feel like you're cutting off your right arm, but we'll see. I might never go back on it again. I kind of like the feeling of some privacy.

It's time to clock back in and go to our weekly meeting: it's skill day!! I can hardly wait.

I think I need a snow cone

I am sick! Blehhhh my tummy hurts I hate feeling sick.

Natalie trimmed my hair today on my lunch break. It's been growing since October without a trim. When I graduate I'm thinking of making a big change, maybe going completely blonde again? That would be fun.

Once Geoff is done with school in three weeks!! he's going to study for the GMAT, which is in December. He thinks he wants to get an MBA at UNLV. I think he might apply to BYU and some of the universities around here too, but I think UNLV would be fun. The only thing that scares me about living down there is the cockroaches but otherwise it would be a blast. And I'm so proud of Geoff for setting such a great goal. I know he can do it! So I guess we'll know about that in the next year or so.

I really like Harry Potter 5. I'm getting more excited to see the sixth.

Bleh. I'm gonna go lay down. I am so grateful I can be sick at home and not have to go to class tonight.

Bring your own cape and wand

Saturday was a house-cleaning frenzy. It needed it so bad! We did about a hundred loads of laundry - which was most of it. And we scrubbed and dusted and vacuumed everything else. We finished on the house around 4, then started our Harry Potter marathon again. Apparently Geoff had made an open facebook invitation for it, (BYOCW - Bring Your Own Cape and Wand), and his friend Marshall actually showed up! (Without the cape and wand, but with pizza!) It was so good to see Marshall. I don't think we have all just hung out like that since he got married. Well, his wife didn't actually come which is fine. We all chatted for a little while and then watched numbers 3 and 4. It was two a.m. by the time #4 was done, so Marsh went home and we went to bed. We finished number 5 today.

Then I did homework. Both mine and Geoff's groups have to give presentations to the "board of directors" (aka - the professor) on Thursday night. My job was to make the proformas for the next four "years." I did a best and worst case scenario, but I'll be honest it was pretty half-assed because I don't know how to get legitimite numbers based off that dumb video game. I don't think you can. How do you make financial statements when you don't have a real piece of software that tracks expenses and revenues and cash and real transactions? I should say - how do you make financial statements when you don't even have a real business! I guess proformas are more or less an estimate anyway, but still? It's really quite ridiculous. Well at least Geoff had already made a spreadsheet template which was a really huge help and gave me some sort of direction. Our professor tries to act all grumpy and demanding like a real board of directors during the presentations - in fact I think he chews most groups out pretty well. I don't really care though, we just have to get through it and then we never have to do this dumb class again. Then all weekends can be as wonderful as this one sans homework.

I LOVE OUR CLEAN HOUSE!